More ‘chivalry’ asked by Nazi chief
New Allied landings expected by Kluge
London, England (UP) –
Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, new German commander-in-chief on the Western Front, admitted today in an interview broadcast by Berlin that Allied air bombardments in France had put his men and his command under an “extremely heavy” strain and he pleaded for a war fought “according to high standards of chivalry.”
He intimated that the German command expected new Allied landings on the West European coast at any time.
Kluge made his admissions in boasting that he would deal the armies of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower “blows which they will remember as long as they live.”
The German Transocean Agency broadcast the interview, the first given by Kluge since he took command from Field Marshal Karl Gerd von Rundstedt.
Kluge said that the Germans were adapting themselves to the methods of Gen. Eisenhower’s troops and promised:
The world will see in good time the success of our methods. Our enemies have planned and executed their operations against our continent on a purely scientific basis. We oppose to this the knowledge that this fight is being fought for “to be or not to be.”
Kluge insisted that the Allies had not caught the Germans napping on D-Day. He said:
We had been expecting the enemy. Now again, when we are reckoning at any moment with a new onslaught, I can again say: “We shall receive them accordingly.”